


Tired

by tinycecropia



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Comfort, Depression, M/M, long distance, suicide ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-09
Updated: 2016-09-09
Packaged: 2018-08-14 00:59:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7992772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinycecropia/pseuds/tinycecropia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kyungsoo helps talk Chanyeol down from a depressive episode</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tired

Chanyeol tiptoed through the dark, quiet house, careful not to wake his grandma. She was a pretty light sleeper these days. Whenever Chanyeol or his father would ask how his grandma had slept she would respond with a wave of her hand, as if to say it no longer mattered. She always kept a jigsaw puzzle on a table by her bed in case she couldn’t sleep, which seemed to be the case more often than not. Chanyeol could relate. 

The decor of the tiny house had only shifted slightly in the twenty-one years that Chanyeol had been visiting; a walker was taking permanent residence by the front door, for example, and the old analog television was replaced with a shiny flat screen. But the house still felt the same. Small, bright, and comfortable. A place where he felt loved. 

Even though his grandma only lived two hours away, Chanyeol had been so busy with school that he hadn’t seen her all year. He decided he would rectify this, and since he was the proud owner of a brand new (very used) car he simply packed an overnight bag and drove himself up—after calling first, of course. His grandma was as sharp and witty as ever (a trait Chanyeol always said he inherited from her). The two of them spent the night playing board games and laughing together at her stories.

When she went off to bed Chanyeol’s grandma asked him the typical grandma questions—did he need extra blankets, did he eat enough, did he want a glass of milk? He assured her he’d be fine and received a kiss on the cheek in response. 

Now in the eerie silence Chanyeol’s bare feet felt cool against the linoleum floor of the tiny kitchen. He had a sudden memory of being young in this house. He was terrified of the dark back then. When his dad would fall asleep on the couch he would snore loudly, and Chanyeol would feel alone and scared, and hide his head under the blanket to calm himself down. 

Chanyeol looked at the shadows cast by the low light of the lamp with disinterest. The dark didn’t scare him anymore, but he was terrified for different reasons. The clock on the wall ticked with every passing second. He wished he could still hide his head under the covers.

He almost had to turn sideways to fit between the kitchen counters and the table that was stuffed against the wall, but he was out the back door soon enough, stepping down from the concrete ledge onto the dewy grass. It was late summer but Chanyeol could smell fall in the air, crisp and exciting and lonely. The backyard certainly felt stifling lonely despite the traffic rushing by on the main road. Crickets droned all around him. They weren’t loud enough to drown out his uneven, laboured breathing. It was 2 am.

Chanyeol was beyond the point of worrying about how late he was dialling Kyungsoo’s number. He had been beyond this point since Kyungsoo caught him in the middle of a particularly bad episode, and after Chanyeol had calmed down enough Kyungsoo had told him to call any time, really, he meant it. And Chanyeol believed him.

Kyungsoo picked up after a single ring, clearly just woken up by the phone, voice thick with sleep.

"Mm...Chanyeol, y'okay?"

The way Chanyeol's body tried to repress his tears made his throat hurt.

"No, I'm scaring myself a lot. Grandma's asleep and I don't want to worry her. I keep thinking...she keeps her knives right there on the counter, I don't even have to open a drawer to get to them."

Kyungsoo sounded more alert now.

"Hey, I'm here. Where are you right now?"

"In the backyard." Chanyeol was whispering but it still sounded out of place. He was always too loud. 

"You're doing a good job already, you know that?” Kyungsoo said gently over the line. “You're asking for help. That's huge."

It didn’t feel huge, but Chanyeol knew that Kyungsoo was right, because he knew what it was like when he didn’t ask for help.

"What do you need? I'm here all night."

So Chanyeol just talked, and cried, but mostly talked. Sometimes he would be crying too hard to get his words out. Kyungsoo waited patiently. What Chanyeol loved the most, maybe, was the gentle reassurances Kyungsoo would whisper to him. Chanyeol had never _told_ Kyungsoo that he loved those words, but Kyungsoo seemed to understand without it needing to be said.

“It’s just...I’m so fucking _sad_.” Chanyeol repeated for the third time. “And it doesn’t make _sense_. I can’t remember really being happy. I keep pretending, though, and sometimes that’s okay.”

Kyungsoo hummed thoughtfully and was quiet a moment before speaking.

“Hey, I remember something that used to make you happy when we were sixteen.”

Chanyeol snorted. 

“Whatever we thought was funny back then is bound to be a disaster now.”

This was how Chanyeol ended up with his laptop propped on his knees, slumped in a patio chair in the backyard and just barely getting a signal from his grandma’s spotty Wi-Fi, syncing up YouTube videos with Kyungsoo. 

“Did you already start it?” Kyungsoo asked.

“No, are you ready?” The smell of Chanyeol’s grandma’s herb garden was everywhere, fresh basil reminding him of home cooked meals. “Okay, three, two, one.”

The two of them tapped the space bar at the same moment. The video was a sketch comedy bit from the depths of Kyungsoo’s “favourites” playlist. They were both shocked to see it still there.

“Jesus, look at the quality,” Chanyeol muttered. “This is worse than I remember.”

“Wait, shut up, it’s the bit about Tom Hanks.”

They spent an hour going down a rabbit hole of YouTube videos. They started with the ones they hadn’t seen in ages, the stupid sketch and musical comedy bits, the viral videos from the mid 2000s, and branched out from there. Somewhere between the videos of beetle fights and the ones of cars getting destroyed by industrial strength crushers, Chanyeol realized he felt better. He could breathe. Tonight would be okay. 

Chanyeol began to nod off to an episode of some Russian kids’ show that Kyungsoo had picked.

“Chanyeol? Are you sure it’s okay to fall asleep in the backyard? I don’t think it’s safe.”

Kyungsoo’s voice roused Chanyeol, but just barely. He dragged himself back into the living room, catching himself just before he tripped on the coffee table, and dropped heavily onto the couch. It was lumpy and uncomfortable but he was too tired to care. He grabbed a fistful of his blanket and pulled it up to his face, pressing his nose into the fabric. Chanyeol heard Kyungsoo laugh softly.

“I can tell you’re doing that thing. When you shove the blanket against your face. This is why you always have drool on your sheets.” 

“You’re...drool,” Chanyeol said stupidly.

“That’s not even a good insult.”

“Whatever. I’m asleep.”

Their conversation was exclusively in whispers now, the hush of the house extended to their phone call. Kyungsoo had no reason to whisper but he did anyway, and it was nice. Kyungsoo’s voice was always so nice.

"Sorry I had to wake you up to get you inside," he said gently.

"No, it's ‘kay,” Chanyeol muttered into his blanket. He heard Kyungsoo yawn and could imagine the way his eyes would have scrunched up.

"If you wake up again and need to, you can call me"

"Thanks,” Chanyeol said. “Really."

"Of course."

Kyungsoo could tell that Chanyeol had finally drifted off when he stopped responding completely. The line was quiet save for the faintest sound of Chanyeol breathing. In his bed back home, Kyungsoo took a deep breath and turned onto his side, wishing vaguely that Chanyeol could have been there with him. He didn’t really have the words for this feeling yet, but he tried anyway:

"Love you, Yeol."

**Author's Note:**

> i don't want to get anyone's hopes up BUT i might make another chapter for this one bc i just really liked writing it...we'll see!! Thanks for reading and goodnight!


End file.
